November 7: Today in Christian History

November 7, 680

An ecumenical (general) council opens in Constantinople. It will condemn monethelitism, the teaching that Christ’s human will is superceded by his divine will.

November 7, 739 

Willibrord, a missionary monk who was trained in Ireland and traveled over northwestern Europe, died. Called the "Apostle of Frisia," he was highly instrumental in the conversions of Germany and Scandinavia.

November 7, 1781

In Seville, the Spanish Inquisition burns its last victim, a woman who refuses to confess that she has entered into a covenant with the Devil.

November 7, 1814

Saying, “Heaven, heaven, my true home,” Chinese convert Peter Wu Guosheng is executed. He had led 128 family and friends to Christ.

November 7, 1837

Murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy, editor of the St. Louis Observer, an abolitionist and Christian. Three times his press had been destroyed by opponents who resented his calls for temperance and an end to slavery.

November 7, 1841

Marie Rafaravavy, a staunch Christian who had been severely persecuted and forced to flee Madagascar because of her faith, leaves England in the hope of returning to her homeland. Because persecution is ongoing, she will have to settle in Mauritania, where she will preach until her death seven years later.

November 7, 1852

Death in Bewdley, Worcestershire, England, of hymnwriter John Cawood. Of his seventeen hymns, the best-known are “Hark! What Mean Those Holy Voices?” and “Almighty God, Thy Word is Cast.”

November 7, 1880

Baptism of twenty-year-old Edgar Young Mullins. At birth his parents had dedicated him to God, praying that he might become a minister; however he had not become a Christian until shortly before his baptism. He will go on to become a Baptist minister and president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which he will greatly expand.

November 7, 1889

The Northern Christian Advocate (Syracuse, New York) publishes a note from an anonymous correspondent in Jerusalem alleging that an inscription found at St. Étienne’s monastery, north of Damascus Gate, places Christ’s tomb near that site, not at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Allegedly the inscription says, “I, Eusebius, have desired to be buried in this spot, which I believe to be close to the place where the body of my Lord lay.” However, the report differs greatly from the actual inscription, which makes no reference to Christ’s place of entombment.

November 7, 1908

Barbara Johnston sails with a group of missionaries for Asia. She will be Canada’s first Pentecostal missionary to India, assisting with a translation of the New Testament into Marathi, but will die of kidney failure after just three years of mission work.

November 7, 1991

Muslim militants murder Coptic Christian Aziz Abdel Masih. His body lies in the street for nine hours before the police recover it. Investigators mock his wife of two months when she appears to claim her husband’s body.